I’m not perfect, so sue me

VAL CLIFTON

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, August 6, 2008

While a group of individuals are convinced that they are doing their civic duties as watchdogs over the politicos of Northwest Harris County, methinks sour grapes are the impetus for the recent barrage of lawsuits and ethics complaints.

Allow me to elaborate.

Since May of 2004, Fred Blanton has submitted 262 requests to the Lone Star College District. Between May 6 and July 8, he filed nine open records requests with Klein ISD.

Shortly after he was defeated in his attempt to gain a seat on the board, Blanton filed one ethics complaint against a list of people at LSC in December 2006. It was dismissed at first reading by the Texas Ethics Commission, according to Ray Laughter, LSC Vice Chancellor of External Affairs Ray.

In April, Jean Iverson, who was vying for the LSC Trustee 9 position filed an ethics complaint against Jerry Albrecht, who was running for Position 3 trustee, the spot that Blanton ran for and lost, marking his third failed attempt at a seat on the board.

In addition, James Doyle filed a lawsuit against LSC Board Chair Randy Bates, alleging that there were “numerous voting irregularities that call the legitimacy of the election into question.”

My guess is that the ever-sneaky Election Monster shimmied his way into the ballot box and cast one of his evil spells, enabling the district to make repairs to their facilities and educate their students.

Evil, evil, Election Monster.

Doyle also recently filed complaints against Willis Mayor Leonard Reed and five of the city’s council members.

Blanton’s penchant for the requests spurred the LSC board to create a department to handle the influx. But what does this mean to you, the taxpayer?

A budget of $80,000 a year funds The Great Requester’s hobby, and that doesn’t include time spent by other departments at the college to retrieve the information he seeks, or the fact that he’s using his own machine to print it out.

And the whining just keeps getting louder.

The Klein School District wanted a glittery new bond that had heavy opposition in the community. Boycotting threats were made to business owners who supported the $647 million bond.

But it passed, and apparently the margin of difference wasn’t sufficient enough for The Great Requester, who proceeded to file a lawsuit and call for another election.

The number of petty ethics complaints filed over the last few years for miniscule discrepancies that are really nothing more than clerical errors begs the question of what kind of time it took to find the needles in the proverbial haystack.

These kinds of shenanigans can be likened to the tattletale who wickedly twiddles his thumbs, eagerly awaiting to tattle on the cool kids for passing notes in class so that the teacher assigns them to detention.

Sure, we want our elected officials to pay attention to the details, but we also want them to be human. Do I care if you misspelled a word on your campaign reports or that an address is missing a number? Not so much.